


Flowers for Zuko

by spacemagic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Fire Lord Zuko, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Katara & Zuko (Avatar) Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Whump, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, mental breakdowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 10:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27349888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemagic/pseuds/spacemagic
Summary: In the aftermath of the Final Agni Kai, in that desperate space in between the comet and the coronation where the whole world is scrambling for breath, Zuko struggles to deal with what happened to his sister. Katara watches, holds his hand, and picks flowers.[Written for Day 7: Free Day of Fire Siblings Week]
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 182
Collections: Quality Fics





	Flowers for Zuko

**Author's Note:**

> **content warnings:** descriptions of dissociation, mental breakdowns, and references to past abuse. brief mention of genocide (air nomads). very brief reference to potential for self-harm/suicidal ideation.
> 
> this fic gets pretty heavy (but there's comfort at the end too, I promise)

He doesn’t pick her up after she collapses, from exhaustion, after screaming out all the fire in her lungs, _blue blue blue,_ like she’s trying to rake her own vocal cords out, _blue blue blue,_ until all that’s left is chains and a girl who can’t howl any more. She looks both exactly like and unlike his sister of fourteen years. It’s horrible. It’s horrible, and he doesn’t do anything, at first. 

He just… stands there.

This is probably one of those moments that looks really bad, really awful, to everyone else. He _knows_ what this looks like. He knows – now, at least – what brothers are supposed to do. The part of him that knows what he should do – the part of him that sometimes speaks in billowy echoes, soft and blurring, in his mother’s measured words, or sometimes speaks in a voice that is far more grainy, tea-worn, his uncle’s weathered voice, a voice sharp enough to spit fire, but keeps soft and gentle nonetheless, but in this moment, it sounds like neither of them, no voice his ear could name, the part of him that _knows_ what he should do – is telling him that he should catch her. He should catch his sister, curl her up in his arms, and take her towards her bedroom, where he would tuck her gently into bed. It’s what older brothers are supposed to _do_ , aren’t they?

It’s just that it’s only the fifth or sixth thought he has racing through his brain and it’s like a dream, the way it fuzzes at the edges. His sister would call it childish. Or absurd. Absurd, that’s what she’d say, his sister. _His sister_ (who’d call him, wanting to catch her, absurd) is a wreck on the ground that has run out of screaming. And he’s considering scooping her up in his arms like an Agni Kai didn’t just happen and scorch through half the Caldera, and she wasn’t a hair away (or two or three) from setting it all ablaze, like she didn’t lash out lightning at _his best friend_ – like she didn’t try to _kill_ his best friend – just to torment him, a little – just to toy with him – she always did like to break his things, especially the ones he liked to hide from her, _didn’t she_ –

And he was thinking of catching her as she collapsed.

It’s… almost a bit funny. He’s not going to laugh, though, because that would look _really_ bad, but also because the first thought in his mind, the really important one, is that he’s trying to remember how to breathe. He’s struggling to breathe. The basics. He’s got to focus on the basics.

_Breathe._

“Zuko?” It’s a little, tiny voice Katara uses, as if she’s picking freshly cut shards of glass. Hesitant hands, hesitant voice. “Are you…?”

He doesn’t hear the rest of the question. He’s focussing on the in and out. The tightness of his breath. _One, two, three._ He… he wants to say he looked at this, straight in the eye, at her at her worst and her messiest, and didn’t feel afraid. He’s not afraid. He’s _not–_

Zuko doesn’t move. Zuko doesn’t look away.

_Breathe in. One, two, three, four..._

All of that abrasive feeling fades, looking at her. That… righteousness, he supposes, but that feels like too big a word, perhaps... commitment? (I’m going to do right, I’m going to do right, I’m going to _fix this_ somehow, I’m going to...) the firmness of _all that_ feels quieter, but also the worse stuff, that he shouldn’t feel, that lurches inside, that fades too. The… it’s anger, but it’s not, it’s not a shivering rage (not any more, not unless he thinks about how she _almost_ – no, no almosts, he’s past almosts and could-bes), but this slow-burning… thing, this undercurrent, this old, simmering… almost bitterness, almost resentment, but not really, it’s that voice that say that _of course_ it’d end up like this, that _of course_ they’d have flames at each other’s throats, that they could never just be… it could just never be normal, could it? They didn’t _know_ – he didn’t even _know_ what normal was until a few weeks ago, and when he thinks about it too much he’s almost boiling over because there is _so much_ they could have had, that’s not there, is it? 

All of that feeling, all of those burning things that make fire roar from his fingertips just seem to wash away, looking at his sister now. Collapsed. Collapsed is the word she’d use – passed out sounds so _passive_ , not her at all, like she didn’t somehow have a hand in her own dramatic descent, like she didn’t scream and shout and bite and fight before eventually, she collapsed. A cliff falling into the ocean in the heart of a storm, a force of nature, beaten only by what was stronger.

_One, two, three, four..._

It hurts. It hurts, despite everything, to see her like this. That’s the fourth thought, or perhaps the fifth, that’s spinning in his head while he’s trying to count his breath and stop his lungs from seizing up. He feels _for her_. Feels… not exactly pity, she’d gouge out his eyes (or something equally unspeakably horrible) before she’d let him – her _dum-dum_ brother – pity her. But he feels something, something enough to quiet the rest, to wash it away, swallowed by the tide.

_Breathe. One, two, three, four…_

She’s a wreck. She’s sunk, beneath the waters. She can’t hurt him, like this, she’s got no more fire to give, and he _knows_ she can’t hurt him, like this. She’s been defeated, done, and she didn’t go quietly either, it’s almost… no, no more ‘almosts’. _She can’t hurt him, like this._ But still – but seeing her, knowing what he’s just _taken_ from her, what he’s just done – knowing how _much_ she keeps locked inside of her, burning brighter than he ever could, all that _blue blue blue_ – all that _blue blue blue_ that she could ball up and toss right at his face, if she were feeling vindictive –

( _Azula always lies, Azula always lies_ , the refrain that felt like a drumbeat, the thunder that follows her lightning, has begun to shrink, but it’s still there at the back of his head, a soft patter-patter, like rain, a reminder of an old storm, but it’s not a comfort now, it’s only bitter and sad–)

It feels like someone took his lungs and crumpled them up into a ball and then threw them away.

He looks at his sister, and it hurts, and – he looks at his sister, and somehow, he’s afraid. Afraid. (still afraid) (how long has he been afraid?)

That’s the second thought. That he’s afraid. He _shouldn’t be_ afraid, he knows that is wrong, and yet looking at her makes him feel like there’s a thousand little spikes inside and he’s got to be on his toes (but not too much on his toes or else he’ll be knocked right off them) because she’ll run rings around him on purpose where father can see and he’s still there, he’s still twelve years old, he’s still struggling to breathe (one… two… three) and maybe Katara says something like, _you’re hurt, Zuko,_ and he barely registers the words, it might as well be a whisper speaking through a fog, because it’s just… there are six or seven or eleven or seventeen thoughts and feelings he’s running out of words for because he’s trying, he’s really _trying_ , to remember to breathe. 

The basics, Zuko. One. Two. Three. His sister is _a wreck_. His sister–

He probably wouldn’t even have heard Katara at all, were it not for how gently her hand curls around his shoulder.

“Zuko,” she says (and the way she says his name is so kind that it’s a bit alarming).

He moves his head at that. Makes a little noise. Something like _mhm-hmm._

“You… you need to rest. Zuko. You’re still hurt.”

He looks, suddenly, to her. Big, wide eyes. Why does she look so concerned?

“You just got shot by lightning,” she says.

He just got shot by lightning, didn’t he? 

Yeah. He almost forgot.

How long has he been standing there, staring, stuck, not breathing properly, and doing _nothing_?

He tries to step forward. 

He almost falls over. 

He doesn’t pick his sister up after she collapses – he can’t even reach her. Katara leads him away, and his legs almost bend in on themselves, beneath him, (and collapse), on his way up the stone steps to the palace, as he learns heavy on her shoulder instead. 

He doesn’t have the strength to carry his sister with him. It’s hard, while he’s counting his struggling breaths, to shut out the thought that he somehow still wasn’t strong enough. That voice, he knows, still sounds like his father. 

* * *

  
  
  


He’s not avoiding her. He’s _not_ avoiding her. 

It’s just every second is stuffed with check-ins and appointments and attendants and a revolving door of tall and important people whose faces shouldn’t smudge together into one off-colour expression, which is either judging him or is simply exasperated with him, he can’t quite put it together, even though he’s still glued together with sticky bandages and is not allowed to leave his bed. He couldn’t take the time to count his breath before there’s another knock, another question, another voice that strains with _concern,_ but he knew better than that, he knew _concern_ was just a polite word for disappointment, in dark halls of the palace where every word has to be sharp and clever and double – no, _triple-_ edged, and it’s impossible to count his breath when every gesture is a blade again, and it’s _impossible_ to put all those jumbled and messy thoughts that felt like dreams into place when he’s tasked with delegating a whole palace into something vaguely functional (half the staff roster was decimated in a single night – what did she even _do?_ ). It has been six days of double-triple-checking the details of all things minor and monumental, the water-damaged pagoda in the southern courtyard and the rice shortages in the Lower Caldera region following six months of emergency taxation and the exact shade of gold and red on the seal of the coronation invitations (at that point, he almost snaps. Luck would have it, for once, that his bed sheets are not very flammable) and the Head Sage speaks of funeral rites and jubilant celebration in the same sentence and whenever he asks _why me?_ he’s told there’s no one else. There’s no Fire Lady, there’s no Regent, there’s no one else of an appropriate rank.

Not unless he wants to talk to his sister.

He looks to Katara, who makes a face he can’t read. He looks back, and shakes his head. No. He doesn’t want to talk to his sister.

It’s all a mess.

And he’s alone, with this mess. Except for Katara, who is dealing with the uncertainty of everything by colliding with all the palace doctors that have accrued, incrementally day by day, and pushing into his room and pushing past the strict thirty minute limit for visitors and dressing his wounds (he tells her she doesn’t have to, and she tells him that she _can’t_ do nothing – she’ll go _mad_ , if she does nothing) and she insults all his official guests’ dress sense the moment they leave the door and grumbles about stuck-up imperialists with blood on their hands – which he can hardly disagree with – and she fusses over him endlessly – which is – well, yeah, he _did_ get struck by lightning, she likes to remind him (he likes to forget), and while he appreciates it, he _really_ appreciates it, though, he knows he should appreciate it… it's more for her sake, that he lets her in, than his.

He's not fond of being fussed over. More than one cup of tea has been broken over it.

(But she also brings him flowers each morning. Bunches of different things picked from the garden with uneven stems thrown into a vase. Bright pink peonies, today. They don’t match with the room. It’s almost a relief.)

He reminds himself that it’s Katara, not his Uncle here, and he worked _so hard_ to get something approaching speaking terms with her, and he’s not going to ruin it by being a spoiled baby. Besides, you don’t ask Katara, Master Waterbender _and_ Healer, _not_ to tend to your wounds (and bring you flowers and casually mock the nobility) after you’ve just been… shot by lightning by your sister (he always knew it would come to this, why does it hurt to think about? Why is that strange to say?)

She looks weary. Really weary.

He’s asked her more than once if she’s okay. Okay, as in, _really_ okay, not the sort of ‘okay’ you might tell your uncle over that cup of calming tea you didn’t appreciate enough, but the ‘okay’ where everything doesn’t feel like it’s about to fall out of the seams. He’s smart enough to know people lie about those things all the time.

“I’m _fine_ Zuko.”

“Are you, though?”

“Fine. _Really_.”

She’s definitely lying. Zuko tries to shrug, but it _hurts._

“Okay. If you say so.”

Something about that makes her face crumple up. Perhaps it’s because he looks twice as worse, taped together with bandages, confined to a bed that is too soft in a room with far too many ostentatious rugs and garish gold trimmings, and it’s not him who’s about to collapse. That would be his guess.

 _“Zuko,”_ she says, his name breaks up into tiny little fragments, and she tries to hold him. She tries to hold him, but she can’t without brushing the new scar, without it hurting again.

It is dark, and the sky is brimming with stars. Her hands have peeled off his bandages and washed his wounds and touched how much he’s been scarred again, every rupture and broken colour along his skin, when her hands stop suddenly, and her hands ball up into fists, and she opens her mouth – like she wants to shout and scream and yell – but instead, she bawls – and – and Zuko doesn't know what to do – he doesn't know – so he offers his shoulder because that's what people _always say_ and – and she just grins at that – grins like it hurts while she's still crying and tells him that he's injured and he's stupid he shouldn't worry for her – 

“I’m strong enough,” she says. 

“I know that.” 

– so he pulls her hands in his hands and holds on tight. He holds on tight. She can’t look at him, her head curls up into her knees, but she holds on tight.

“How could she _do this_ to you?” she whimpers, into her knees, not looking at the raw and burning scar carved into his middle, holding his hand tight.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


They still don’t know if his – if _Ozai_ is dead yet. That’s the worst thing. 

It takes four days for a hawk to fly across the ocean and on the fifth day they were drowning with encrypted messages and coded words he hadn’t learned but what little they could decipher was chaos. Soldiers deserting en masse. Militias, uprising, resistance spoken about like some horror from a spirit tale. Reports that were clearly falsified propaganda. Complete lack of discipline in the ranks. Who was reporting to who and what – half the officer class deferring to different factions of generals – all of it was question marks. They can deduce the invasion _probably_ failed, that the Fire Nation is _probably_ on the run.

But his father could be alive. His father could still be hunting him. His father could take a squadron of elite soldiers, march straight back to the Caldera, and slaughter everyone inside of the palace. Cut their losses. (Cut his son’s throat.)

Cut them to pieces, he thinks, as Katara hums her way through a half-improvised healing ritual with a bucket of water like there is no such thing as violence outside these four walls. She sits by his bedside, with a vase full of Azaleas today, but looks out to the window, where the moon hangs low, and watches the sky for airships.

“How can you hope _so much?”_ he asks her. 

She turns her head. Her eyes widen and her hands reach out for his.

“Because we have to. We _have to_ believe in them.” 

She pulls him in, and her hands grip on to his again. That’s a code, now, some kind of message, because they run out of words frequently these days. Hold on to me tight. _Hold on to me tight,_ like she’s stopping something from spilling over, and overflowing. 

There’s already too much water on the floor.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


They don’t run. They don’t make a tactical retreat to a more secure location, regroup with other forces, or anything a soldier would do. 

“You’re _sick_ ,” she reminds him, when he mentions it. “ _Tui and La_ , you almost _died_ of an infection, Zuko. We’re not moving.”

So he stays in bed. Katara brings in flowers in the morning, picked at random, orchids and lilies, chrysanthemum and camellia, without regard for their meaning beyond a pretty colour, and washes his wounds each evening, after all the people who can bother and bristle and butter him up have been dismissed. He spends a lot of time, not looking at her, but looking at shapes. The outline of a rose and the pattern of the tiles and the texture of his bedsheets and the constellations he can spot from his window. The specifics are tangled up in the imagination and if he doesn’t count the ruby-red flame motifs on the ugly carpet then all he can think of is the worst _worst_ things, about a world set aflame and his father laughing while he’s struggling to breathe. The world could be ending, and his father could be laughing, and all they can do is wait, stuck in bed. It’s enough to drive someone mad, all that waiting. All that waiting, when you’re confined, you can’t leave your bed. You can’t pace out your frustration, your wounds are still sore and wrapped up in bandages and as much as you’d like to pour it all out, you have to stuff it all up inside, in order, in position, as the line of prim petitioners who’d cut you to ribbons if they had half the chance gets longer by the day, and you’re still waiting, to be addressed with concern (disappointment), you’re still waiting, wondering who’s still walking and who’s a bottle of ash, still waiting. Healing is slow. You’re tired. Healing is painstakingly slow. You’re tired. Katara holds your hand tight. You’re tired. You can’t carry anyone.

Zuko almost wants to scream.

(But when he thinks of screaming, all he can think of is his sister, screaming out all the fire in her lungs, until there is nothing left for her to breathe, and suddenly the idea isn’t as appealing any more, and he counts his breaths, _one, two_...)

“I need to burn something,” he says, suddenly.

Katara looks at him like he’s grown a second head.

“What? _Why?_ _”_

“Because,” and then he bites his tongue. He needs to explain this in a way that doesn’t make him sound like a complete idiot. “I need to do _something._ And I haven’t bent in a while. And there are a lot of horrible things in this palace that would be better off burned.”

“Like what?”

Like... 

There are many things. The most painful are put on display. There are a number of vaunted corridors near the Royal Archives where tapestries hang, each showing a bloodbath like it is something beautiful, lightning dancing in the sky as skies rain fire, conquest and seizure, all of Sozin’s horrendous achievements brightly on display. An elegant and noble face is the picture of genocide (they called it a victory, instead). Patriots look upon them with pride.

He does not want anything, though, that Katara could look at, and feel more pain.

“Like every flattering portrait of my father,” he settles on.

Katara smiles at that. It wouldn’t hurt to burn that, a bit of vanity. Her look – it’s almost a little devious – and a little familiar, he suddenly sees a better mirror of his sister in it, and that thought makes him want to choke. She’s already clapped her hands and ran out the door, though, before his steamboat of thought can catch up, collecting three somewhat skittish servants for a mission. Their goal: to find the ugliest, most pompous, and most offensive portraits of the former Fire Lord Ozai, and bring them to Zuko’s room for a quick and prompt burning. He counts his breathing along with the interlocking triangles on the tiles and tries not to sink into the thought of soft sands, and tries not to think about the sun on his back, the water at his toes, and the way his sister would smile, younger then, when she grabbed his hand tight, determined, when she was on a mission of mischief.

(It wasn’t the same. She’d never dare to be so disrespectful. Azula knew where the lines had been drawn in the sand. Katara crossed them, grinning.)

They come back, still laughing, somehow, arms full of tapestries and weaving and ink paintings and even one sculpture, all kinds of ghastly works of art. 

“I was thinking the others could join in. It’ll be fun! Chen can’t firebend, so we pried some dusty looking swords off the wall for him.”

Katara indicates towards a meek young man – a boy, really – with a messy topknot, hiding his hands in his sleeves as if no one could see the blades poking out of them. “They’re probably antiques. We won’t bust them up _too_ much, promise. And then Jiao _can_ firebend, but they wanted to have a weapon, see.” The tallest servant, severe, with fierce crows feet, nods in acknowledgement. “They found a stash of kitchen knives from the servants’ quarters – apparently, there’s barely anything properly sharpened _anywhere_ in the Royal Kitchens at the moment, did you know? Oh, and we also have Ta Mei,” she says, with a wicked smile. The prim young woman at the end gives a practised bow while gripping a mud-crusted spade tight. “Almost almost fought with the only gardener in the palace for that shovel,” says Katara, with a touch of pride. “She’s pretty handy with it. And I was thinking I could use my waterbending, and uh... Zuko, um, hello? Are you there?”

“Yeah. I’m still here.”

“Hey,” she says. She’s softened her voice, and suddenly there aren’t other people in the room, or if they are, Katara is pretending they aren’t. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”

She has probably broken about twelve different social rules in the last five minutes. Most of them are stupid, but it still sets him on edge, which annoys him, which makes him want to burn things more (why does he want to _burn_ things?).

“It’s… I’ll be fine.” He tries not to frown _so_ much. Gives a small wave to the three mismatched servants – who all flinch when his eyes look in their direction. Great. Fantastic. “Just need to set something on fire.”

She beams. She lines up every snarling portrait and silk weaving and that one particularly grotesque statue up neatly in the nearest courtyard. It takes three people to carry Zuko there, to his dismay. He tries to insist on walking by himself. _Tries._ Katara splashes him with water the third time he insists – and thus, he relents, unhappily, to being dragged with far too many hands and fingers and textures and pressures on him all _at once_ and he tries, tries to keep it together, stay wrapped up, but something just wants to burst _out_ and sizzle and –

He grits his teeth.

It’s like an itch, the feeling. A nail scraping inside of him. Scratching away until there is a hole gaping through his chest where a scar is forming. When they place him in front of his father’s likeness, in silk and ink and paint and porcelain and marble, they look at him, expectantly, as if he’s going to burn off half his face and it’ll mean something poetic, a moment of clever justice, to set alight the man with which he shares the same eyes and brow and cheekbones – at least, until his father scarred half of it away, ashamed to share a face, _disgusted_ by his very presence.

He thinks something’s about to snap. 

The flame comes without thinking. Red, and quivering.

Suddenly, he’s not there, in himself.

He watches himself burn things. He watches himself burn things, red and quivering, as three mismatching servants throw themselves into hacking and smashing and pummelling in jerking, sudden, unsteady motions, unused to violence that is not neat and tidy, kept beneath the sleeve of a uniform, hidden behind doors and walls. He watches the flames reach up and the air grow hot and the smoke clog above as Katara summons a wave from a trickle of fountain that rips beneath it, pulls through half the portraits with a _slash,_ a playful smile on her face as she rips off his father’s jawline five times with a single movement of her wrist. He watches himself see how easily the water drains away the colour of the ink until there is nothing but a tracing, a ghost, cut on a canvas, still lingering, and the smoke drifts up, on the horizon, and his sister is smiling–

“Zuko?”

– the hush of waves and gentle winds and suddenly he is on Ember Island, again, where heavy air is cut up by the breeze, the sands are soft, the tides rustle, and nothing is too fierce. He is pacing along those oh-so gentle shores as he hears the crackle of childhood memories, wrapped in cloth, hidden in boxes he shouldn’t touch, now up _torrents_ of flames, a sky-high pyre for something he never wanted to think of again, _burning burning burning_ and he counts his breaths, _two,_ _three, four…_

“Zuko? Zuko! What are you _doing!?_ ”

– childhood memories, wrapped in cloth, hidden in boxes he shouldn’t touch, burning bright, burning white –

“Zuko! _Stop it,_ _Zuko! This isn’t funny!”_

– his sister is by his side again, a hand on his shoulder, an almost-smile on her lips, as they burn their foundations beneath their feet and call it caring for each other –

“Zuko – _Zuko?_ _Talk to me, Zuko – please—_ ”

A hand curls on his shoulder.

He’s back.

The flames, which have gone from red to gold to a blistering almost-white (never blue, he could never reach her, no matter how high he climbed, he’d fall before he touched that bright star), die out in an instant. 

“Hi, Katara,” he says.

There’s something wrong. Something still cutting up, inside. 

“Oh, Zuko. Oh, I was _so_ worried. I really was...”

She reaches out, and Zuko lets her hug him, if only for her sake.

“It’s okay, Katara,” he says. “Let’s… let’s stop now. I think I need to rest.”

* * *

  
  
  


In the night, they can still smell too much smoke. Today’s flowers are magnolias, cut with uneven stems, but they can’t block out the smell.

“What did you hear?”

“Just… you just started mumbling to yourself. I don’t think anyone else noticed – or caught what you were saying. It’s…” she pauses. “Sokka gets like that, sometimes. Got like that. After our mother died.” 

“Oh.”

“Like it was all still there in his head. Or he just wasn’t there, for a moment. And I just – I just want you to know you’re not alone. The Agni Kai was…”

Horrible. Devastating. Seeing her scream, all of that, all that _blue,_ the brightest colour he’d ever seen, still dazzling his eyes. It’s a memory he wants to rip out of his skull and smash up like a poor imitation of his father’s visage woven into silk.

“... you don’t have to say it in words, Katara. It’s okay.”

She nods. Her voice grows quiet again.

“Did you feel… any better, at least?”

He takes a breath. He turns to look, to really look at Katara.

“No.”

It doesn’t feel cathartic, to burn everything away. He can still picture Azula’s half-smile, and wonders why it only ever seemed to be alright when they were burning up half the world together.

“Oh. I’m really sorry. I’d thought…”

“No, you don’t have to be sorry. It was my idea.” He winces a little. “My stupid idea.” 

“Oh, _Zuko_.”

The way she says his name, it’s weary and it’s warm and it’s about six more different mixed-up emotions he can’t really name. He holds in the instinct to ask _what that even means_ , so instead, they sit with their hands to themselves in the dark.

“Azula and I used to do that all the time,” he says, and the words suddenly slip out. “When we weren’t… when she wasn’t trying to kill me, obviously. When things got too much, we’d find a bunch of useless stuff to set on fire. Stupid.” He snorts. “Stupid. What was wrong with us?”

Why could they only _break_ things? Why could they only burn things away? Why was it only ever right when something else got destroyed?

The thought worms around until Katara pulls his hand fully into hers and squeezes it tight. 

“You were kids. You didn’t know how… no one knows how to deal with hurt that big. Not properly.” 

Zuko frowns. “Other people seem to do it better.”

“Other people are better at hiding,” she says, and there’s a smile, but he doesn’t understand why. She leans in, and quietens her voice, so no one could hear, even if they wanted to, even if there were ghosts to hear. “There’s nothing _wrong_ with you, Zuko.”

“That’s not true.”

“Not the way you mean it. You say it like you’re completely broken,” she says. 

Something twists.

“I’m not?”

“No. You’re not. You’re not.”

Zuko bites his tongue. It doesn’t feel right, but he knows better than to argue.

He can still smell too much smoke. He pulls at her hand, squeezes it tight again. She does the same back. _I’m here. I’m here, with you. Don’t forget._

There’s enough water on the floor at the moment.

  
  


* * *

  
  


On the worst day, on the day Katara runs out of words to stuff into a conversation, and everything feels pallid, and he’s too hot, and it aches, and he can’t forget that it _aches_ – _she struck him with lightning –_ he decides he hates everything.

He keeps it to himself, largely. He lets it boil up, and bubble. 

He hates it in this room. He hates it, in this bed that is too soft, in these dark crimson bed sheets that stink of him, that he’s stuck to while his insides are tied up with bandages. He hates how his legs shake when he tries to stand – when he tries to take half a dozen steps. He hates not being able to open the door. He hates the looks of _concern_ from servants, who should know better. He hates all this hot, sweltering air. He hates the way officials flit around him like flies stuck to a corpse that is still walking, somehow. He hates the colour red. He hates the big, mocking hibiscus flowers that swallow up his bedside table. He hates water on his stomach, he hates balms that sting, he hates all this slow, gradual healing that hurts more than it soothes. He hates the square of light from his window in which the horizon is cramped with shapes of sloping roofs and curved shapes and feels all jagged and wrong – it feels _all jagged and wrong –_

He almost misses being stuck in a boat. No he doesn’t. Yes he does.

(He wants to drink in an empty horizon. He wants to see nothing, nothing, _nothing_ . He wants to dive into freezing cold water and almost drown until his lungs hurt and he can’t stop crying. He wants his uncle. He wants _his uncle._ He wants hot tea in his clumsy hands and words he can’t understand with the whipping of a sea breeze and where is his uncle? Where is _his uncle?)_

He’s not on a boat.

It’s like an itch, the feeling. The feeling, that is yelling at him, that something really needs to _get out._

(Where is _his uncle?)_

He looks at Katara.

(Why wasn’t _someone there?_ )

It’s tiresome, to hate everything. He holds onto Katara’s hand again. He holds onto Katara’s hand, but this time, he can’t keep it in. It pours out of him. He cries.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He is alone, when he gets up, in the middle of the night. He’s feeling better than usual. There’s a blue moon in the sky. Katara has drifted to sleep, and though she’s not there, it feels loose enough, finally, for him to pull away. 

He’s still wrapped up in bandages and cream. He leaves his room, wrapped up in bandages and cream that smells like the underside of a foot, wearing something that resembles a half-decent robe but still hangs off him like a coat hanger. It’s not a graceful exit.

This is a stupid decision, of course. Katara would yell at him for doing it, but he does it anyway. He always did struggle with the very basics, including simple instructions like ‘stay in bed’ and ‘don’t overexert yourself’ or ‘ask for help’. He’s not thinking about that, or really, how everything at his centre just aches and strains enough that on another day, he really would be crying, or how his heart is a shaking mess – although his heart has always been a shaking mess, it’s a lifetime of tiptoeing around lightning strikes, that’s why he can be so quiet on his feet.

He’s not thinking. Thinking is dangerous, and draws him back into bad places and memories he needs to learn to keep shut. He’s walking along dark corridors, clutching his centre, trying to keep it together. Trying to keep it together. 

The fact that his legs won’t stop shaking is not helping.

The palace feels hollow, and it does and doesn’t remind him of that tangled picture of home that sits uncomfortably inside of him. There are almost no servants. Not at this hour. The guards few and far between, almost sparse. What few people he encounters stop. They turn, wide-eyed, and sweep the floor as they bow, when he passes. 

Too low, he thinks, with a frown, too low, for someone who does not have a flaming crown in their hair, he is not the Fire Lord yet, and still they’re almost touching the floor near his stumbling feet.

It’s ridiculous. It’s _pathetic_ , says a voice, too much like his father’s, or maybe it is his sister’s, and the fact that they cut into each other sometimes, layer over each other with a smooth crunch, that scares him. They shouldn’t sound alike.

He wanders, alone. 

No one tells him to go back to bed. He is not the Fire Lord yet, but he is the Fire Lord soon, and that means enough. He’s royalty. They will not tell him where he can and cannot go in his own palace, even when he’s struggling to stay up on two feet, limping his way along abandoned corridors in the dead of night, two steps from collapse, and the thought of that makes him laugh.

He’s about to collapse.

It’s funny. Six months of being called rude and uppity wearing burnt green because he didn’t bend over backwards with half a dozen apologies every time he bumped into someone, or tripped over his feet, or forgot to smile at a customer, or even just looked at someone funny. Six months of being common, all gone too soon. He wonders how long it’ll take before all those sweeping bows, all those flourishes, offering all of themselves to him, in totality, in service, becomes normal (again). He doesn’t know. He laughs, bitterly. It bothers him to think about it, how arbitrary the lines are, between those who bow and those who stand, but he can’t _think_ right now. So he laughs.

It sounds hoarse. He almost has to cough it out.

He continues, wheezing a little. He limps along the long corridor where the official portraits of each and every Fire Lord loomed, tall as spires and just as imposing, and the thought coils up like a barbed wire, and he wonders – he wonders what it would look like, if he let a fire trail from his finger, and burned their edges, or tore them up, with a knife. He watches another version himself slash them apart like he would a vanity portrait of his father, take the shreds, take the ashes, stash them in the catacombs, where they’ll collect dust, dead history – it would be convenient, all that old blood crusted on his hands, that’s built up over a century –

A voice, and this one, it sounds like Katara, tells him: _no._

The world can never, ever forget what the Fire Nation has done. 

(It can’t be glorified.)

It can’t be forgotten.

(It can’t be mourned.)

Because it is never just family history, with Zuko. His inheritance is a whole nation, not a handful of pearls.

(If it must be burned: why should _he_ be the one to wield the torch?)

He looks at the portraits. He sighs. He keeps walking, one stumbling foot forward at a time. When he reaches the treasury, with his shaking legs, his legs almost give beneath him. Of course, he’s come to the room where the crown is being kept, because it’s the worst place he could go. He isn’t _allowed_ here, for one, about twelve different rules say so, not before his coronation. Maybe, on some level, he’s aware he really _shouldn’t_ be here, the Head Fire Sage would combust if they knew, but no one has said anything (and that _really_ does bother him).

He’s the Fire Lord (almost). Rules don’t apply to him, do they? No one stops him when he opens the ornate little case where the crown is kept, pulls it out with a lazy flick of his hand, like it’s anything but an important ceremonial object. Like he’s – like he’s just another tea server, worn sandals and a fraying uniform that’s the wrong colour, who knows nothing of great and terrible lines of warrior-kings, holding a kitchen knife like a weapon, and he doesn’t quite know how it feels yet, to wield something with the worst intent.

He holds the crown in the flat in his palm and stares.

It’s heavy. Heavier than expected. He tries to lower and raise it, to get a sense of its weight. 

It’s stupid, really. Totally stupid. Five little points and a cut of gold, heavier than expected. That’s what they spent their whole life fighting for – fighting over, at each other’s throats, he and his sister – like that slice of gold was all the breaths they could take and all the food they would hunger for, a thousand feasts in the palm of his hand. He hungered – he breathed – so he could hold this. 

Five points, and a cut of gold. He has it now. He won. He’s not sorry, either. He did what he _had to_ do, despite what that quiet little voice in his head (sounds like mother) tells him, and there was no other alternative, none, not when they were set against each other, like starved animals in a pit, but to take it from her.

He almost throws it out the window.

It would be easy, too easy, for it to slip from his hands. But then he would have to bend down to pick it up again. He winces at the thought.

He wanders out of the room. Along vacant corridors, past long, looming portraits without a glance, the crown still in his fingers. It feels as if it’ll slip out at any moment. He wanders, still clutching his stomach, trying to hold everything together, trying to hold everything tight, everything back, until he sees another soul – a maid, a girl scarcely older than him, hair wrapped back tight, carrying a clutter of used tea cups and pots on a tray, that do not clatter as she walks – and he spins, asks her, suddenly:

“Where is my sister?”

The girl spins around. Then almost drops the tray. 

“Where is my sister?” he says again.

“...Your majesty?” she says so quietly, and it could be awe or fear or simple bewilderment and he’s not really conscious enough to tell. 

He realises, suddenly, that he’s not ‘your majesty’ yet.

“Oh – um,” he says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Could you just tell me where my sister is?”

Her eyes have widened enough that he thinks they might fall out of her skull. Then, as if she realises something is missing, she gives a series of the most humbling bows, straight to the floor, almost dropping the tray and all the precious crockery again.

“A thousand apologies, your majesty,” she mumbles, and the words sound almost shaky, like the way he sounds when he’s messed up a kata for the fifth time in a row, and his father is still watching, except this is a servant girl who has no concept of that situation, but somehow, it’s still raw and shaky and wrong. “A hundred thousand apologies. I do not know where the princess is.”

It’s like something drops in his stomach.

“Oh,” he says, quietly. And then looks at the girl, who is shaking, and a thousand bells are going off in his head. “Oh – no, it’s fine, please–” and somehow the word _please_ alarms her more than calms her but he keeps going anyway, “Please, you’re not in trouble. It’s fine. Really. Uh –” What would Uncle do? What _would_ Uncle do? “Uh – What’s your name?”

“Jun, your majesty.”

“Right. I’m Zuko. Jun, it’s nice to meet you.” He tries to smile. He thinks of his uncle, elbowing him just _a little_ sharply, reminding him that he ought to smile at customers, because it’s a nice thing to do, which he always thought was stupid, but regardless. He smiles. It probably looks ridiculous. Of course it does.

She looks at him like she does not understand what he just said. 

“Jun. Do you happen to know… if there is someone who does know where my sister is?”

She nods, tightly.

“That’s good. Could you do me a favour, Jun, and show me to this person?”

“I… Of course, your majesty. It would be an honour.”

That last word _stings._

And she leads him, who is not the Fire Lord yet, who is still wrapped in bandages and an ill-fitting robe and almost limping along with loose hair as the crown dangles in his other hand, and it amazes him it doesn’t slip out of his fingers, to a very tall guard. Her name is Ming, and as she introduces herself as responsible for his sister's night rotation, she gives him a look, the same look so many adults like to give him, that crinkly-brow scrunchy-mouth worried-lines look (it’s not _concern_ – concern is just a polite word for disappointment), but she doesn’t say anything beyond that. Ming calls him your majesty and directs him along a string of familiar corridors that lead him to a large, ornate door.

“This is her bedroom,” Zuko says, flatly.

“Yes, your majesty.”

He had expected a dungeon hidden deep in the caverns beneath the palace, touching the catacombs, the place where you'd lock someone up, and toss away the key. He had expected somewhere… less mundane.

He might have considered that once. Never seeing a hair of her again. There were times where his sister would wind him up like clockwork, spinning around and around, until he'd inevitably collide into a wall, a ceiling, a war council meeting table, his father's inexplicable loathing for every breath he took as if it was wrong somehow – and she would laugh laugh laugh and he would see red and heat and flames and all he wanted was to clam her shut and stuff her away and sear away everything else until it would all stop hurting so much.

He used to think about it, at times. Back when there wasn't any clutter on the horizon, just the sea breeze, just the salt in his wounds, hot enough to melt.

It isn't something he is proud of. It isn't something he likes. It's quiet now, besides, there is no laughter, no mocking glee, nothing to silence – as he's done a good enough job of that already, hasn't he? He's not sorry either, wasn't sorry, he couldn't let her win – but the way she screamed out until the end and it was _blue blue blue_ –

He stiffens, and holds the crown tightly.

“Has – has anyone checked in on her?”

The question is more frantic than he likes.

“There's a guard rotation in place, your majesty. There will always be someone outside of that door, at any hour of the day, and–”

“That's not what I mean,” he cuts in. “Has anyone been inside? How is she?”

“I… she eats most of her meals.” 

His expression darkens. “What do you mean, _most?_ ”

Ming stiffens. “Sometimes she doesn’t choose to eat. It’s… we avoid forcing her, when possible. There’s no sharp objects, of course–”

“She’s an imperial firebender and master of blue fire. She doesn’t _need_ sharp objects.”

Ming looks away, suddenly.

There’s a silence, and it feels heavy.

“She… she hasn’t tried anything, I promise.” It’s almost soft, the way she says it. “She hasn't tried to leave the room either, if that's a concern – your majesty.”

Zuko glares at her, and holds her gaze too tightly.

“Has anyone visited her?”

“I – No, your majesty.”

“Has anyone spoken to her? Actually _spoken_ to her? Said a single _word_ to her?”

Ming swallows.

“Not to my knowledge, your majesty.”

Something in him simmers. Something in him seethes. Something in him, something snapping and writhing, wants to lash out, wants to roar with flame. Six months ago, when there was only salt on his wounds, he might have set something alight.

But the weight of the crown is heavy.

(And his arms, that tremble as they cling on to it, are weak.)

He glances up, and tries to make it sharp, but he's fairly certain he sounds like a disgruntled tea shop worker trying to dismiss a customer.

“Thank you. You are dismissed.”

And it's him and it's the door and it's the crown in his hands, still in his hands, and it's heavy.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He sits outside of her room for a long time. 

He knows, he just _knows_ he should knock (not too harshly), and go inside. Speak to her, because no one else will. She's got no one else. It’s funny, but he doesn’t laugh. Everyone and everything is circling him like vultures (like they know he’s already dead), calling him titles he hasn't really won (he lost, he lost too, but she just lost _worse)_ , bothering and busying him while they’re just waiting, the world on a knife edge, about to be cut up by flames, and he’s here flustering himself about speaking to his _sister_ who had _no one –_

_His sister who tried to kill him, more than once, who had no one else –_

Well. She only ever had – well, Ozai. Which counts as much as zero, _worse_ than zero (and it's strange, but freeing, to think of his name and feel _anger_ , and only anger, and nothing more tangled or confused or with more teeth). 

His sister is alone, worse than alone, got no one, got nothing, no crowns or victories now, and he’s out here deliberating _pros and cons –_ like it’s a _debate –_

The air feels too thick, too solid, like there's something wrong with it, it's why he can hardly breathe –

Azula, he wants to say, whisper through a crack in the door, or draw in the sand beneath their toes, a sound that could be washed away, because he doesn’t have it in him to yell or shout or scream any more.

Azula, he wants to say, and maybe the words tumble out of his mouth, or maybe they don’t, and he simply mouths their shapes, but if they do, they are quiet and small.

Azula.

_Azula._

_Azula, do you know how long it’s been?_

_Do you know what day it is?_

_I’ve forgotten._

_I’ve already forgotten._

_The days slip by but I’m still here, still counting each breath I take like it’s a surprise._

_I don’t understand._

_I think I should be dead._

_Hm._

_I’m losing it, I think._

_Katara said if she does nothing she goes mad, and I think that might be true for me too. Is it true for you, Azula?_

_What does nothing do to you, Azula?_

_Does it wear you out? Does it drain you?_

_Does it scare you, all that space?_

_Were you ever afraid, Azula?_

_I wanted to believe you weren’t afraid of anything._

_I was wrong, didn’t I?_

_Azula._

_Azula._

_I have never seen anyone lose quite like that._

_You did always love to show me up._

_I know for sure now. I’m the better loser. I’ve had plenty more practice. I could fall a thousand times, but I know I’ll always pick myself right back up._

_I’m not going to stop. I’m not going to let him win._

_I’m not going to let him._

_He can’t take us_ both, _Azula._

_Azula, if – if he comes back, I’m setting him on fire._

_Not his portrait. Not his room._

_Him, and only him._

_Until there’s just ash left._

_No, Azula, it’s not – I don’t_ like _it. I don’t like that I have to do it._

_But sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to, you know?_

_Sometimes, in our family, those things include killing our own fathers._

_It’s not about me._

_I couldn't care less about him, actually._

_I don’t need him, not any more – I have Uncle._

_I wish you had someone like Uncle._

_(Don’t laugh. Don't you dare laugh. I’m trying to -- I'm trying to say something important.)._

_Azula – if – if he – if father comes back –_

_I’d end it._

_Azula._

_Don't be mad at me. Please._

_You deserved better._

_You deserved a father._

_We both deserved a damn father–_

_Azula._

_You'll hate me for saying this. I don't care._

_I'm sorry for what he did._

_I'm so sorry for what he did to you._

_Azula._

Azula.

He closes his mouth.

He closes his eyes.

The crown is heavy in his hands. 

So are the weight of memories he wishes he could let go of. 

(But they have to carry the hard times with them, don’t they? All the times he got kicked to the dirt and pulled himself up again, after she beat him, again and again and _again –_ )

(He always lost.)

(She had laughed at him, each and every time.)

(Why should he even bother? Why should he _even bother?_ She wouldn't extend him the same damn courtesy, and the words are so bitter he struggles to swallow them back and he doesn’t know how much he even believes them.)

He grits his teeth.

(The small voice, the stupid voice, says it’s not fair. She only lost _once._ He had to lose a hundred thousand times. How is it that _he_ is the lucky one?)

He grits his teeth, holds on tight to a heavy crown, and tries not to cry again. 

(Not without Katara).

He walks away. 

Alone, again.

  
  


* * *

  
  


He wanders through the gardens, alone. Counting flowers. 

_I suppose narcissus flowers do look like little trumpets, don’t they? I wonder if they could sing, what song they’d perform for us? I imagine it’d be something hopeful._

The moon watches him as he tries to remember exactly how his mother would describe them. 

_What do you think their song sounds like, Zuko?_

The softness of his voice that slips through his fingers is a blanket he can’t pull around him any more. There are times where he can barely remember what she sounds like, a woman who spoke mostly in whispers. It fades away.

_Can you sing it to me, Zuko?_

He falls to his knees, in the mud.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


Katara will find crumpled sheets and an empty bed that morning.

She will race through the palace, and try to piece together accounts of a would-be Fire Lord storming around at night, red-faced, shaking, clutching his chest, wrapped in bandages and an ill-fitting robe, mumbling incomprehensibly about _heirlooms_ and _burdens_ and _entire dynasties_ and _losing_ and _failure_ and _burning_ until he was shivering, a would-be Fire Lord wandering amongst the gardens at night and trying to talk to the flowers until he cried, a would-be Fire Lord who hissed at any servant who tried to approach, insisting, _no,_ he absolutely does _not_ need any kind of assistance, _of any kind, he is absolutely fine, there is absolutely no need to touch him_ –

They do not touch him, of course. They would never defy their Lord.

(He doesn’t walk a hundred paces before his legs give way and he folds into the floor like a limp piece of cloth, next to a rose bush growing wild.)

Katara will find him like this: splayed on the ground, curled up in petals and thorns, with now-muddy robes and bandages unwrapping themselves, the red of his new scar bright in the sun. He is languid in the dirt in a way that tells her that he is absolutely not awake, for while awake he always tenses his arms and legs, clutching something with each movement, as if he is afraid of letting go. His hair has been wrangled into a top knot, somehow, though limp strands of it are falling out. Still pinned in place, at the top of it, is a sliver of gold.

(She wants to shake him by the shoulders. She wants to scream – oh, she wants to _howl_ at him, he’s so _impossible._ )

He is wearing a crown in his hair.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He wakes again in a silk bed with far, far too many cushions. Something about that feels wrong, despite it being how he has woken up every day since the Agni Kai. 

The sun is also coming through the wrong window, which bothers him more than he likes. It's a very hot afternoon, which is probably why his head is still spinning, and also why the light is in the wrong direction (how did he miss sunrise?). His throat is dry. It occurs to him quite suddenly that the narcissus Katara picked are probably going to wilt. He does not remember when she picked flowers, or how he knows it’s narcissus this time, but he knows she would be disappointed if they didn’t have enough water, wouldn’t she? Carefully, he reaches out for the crystal pitcher of water on the bedside table. 

He absolutely does not notice the lemur lounging on top of a dresser, that leaps onto his chest with a start –

The pitcher falls to the floor and smashes into pieces.

“Momo?”

He receives a bright little chirp in reply.

The door swings open.

“Momo, what are you – _Zuko?”_

And his name is an exclamation, a breath of fresh air, and it's not Katara hurtling into the room, it's Aang. Aang, crying out his name with the broadest grin. Aang, beckoning every friend that he has ever known to come meet him. Sokka and Toph and Suki come barrelling into the room – and he becomes aware of the following things:

Firstly, that he has been unconscious for almost three days. Secondly, that a Fire Nation airship travels fractionally more quickly than a panicked, poorly trained, stolen messenger hawk does. Thirdly, that Katara, who stands at the back of the room, has reportedly been _worried sick,_ though she does not say these words herself. Aang tells him, while she wears a difficult smile on her face.

But before he can even ask, everyone has attempted to suffocate his lungs with an absolutely mandatory group hug and then Sokka launches into an animated (and lengthy) account of How Aang Totally Demolished Ozai In Every Way (Except Fatally) With Very Colourful Explosions! While Suki tries very hard _not_ to laugh at his exaggerated retelling, and with Toph chiming in to affirm, occasionally, that yes, the explosions _were_ Very Colourful. It takes Zuko five seconds too long to realise he should have laughed at that joke because he's still trying to swallow the 'Not Fatal' part of the victory, swallow the fact that his father is _not dead_ , swallow the fact that of course he wouldn't be, that was always too much to _hope for_ , when Aang elbows him with this broad, sky-wide smile that just makes him want to soar, and it's just not fair. At this point this point the exact details of how Aang redirected lightning in the sky (“I wouldn’t have done it without my Sifu!”) are passing over his head like water because _Aang is alive, everyone is alive_ ( _and so is his father_ , and those words hold his heart in a stranglehold, and there’s a thousand feelings he wishes he could bury beneath this happiness) and he can’t stop smiling, even though it hurts, and his heart is about to burst, until Aang softly elbows him:

“Katara filled us in on what happened. You know, with your sister.” 

Quiet ripples through the room as everyone turns to look at him, him and the blistering red scar covered up with bandages, that still stings if he tries to bend over. 

“I think you were really brave,” Aang adds, if that wasn’t enough, as if things didn’t hurt still.

Zuko swallows. He tries not to hold his centre. He looks to Katara, who stands at the back of the room without a smile on her face.

“Uh. I… I think you shouldn’t give me too much credit,” he manages to come up with. “I definitely wouldn’t be here without Katara. She was really incredible.”

They turn around to look at Katara, whose eyes widen.

“You should have seen her. I’ve never seen someone waterbend with their _breath_ before.” And the words just pour out of him, and he speaks openly about what choked him before, soft and proud. She held her own against Azula. Katara bested his vile sister with her own ingenuity. Katara froze her in place with her breath and tied her up in chains. Katara won: everyone else lost. Neat and clean. It’s easy, surprisingly easy, to speak about if he cuts himself from the picture, and thinks about the whole scene from the distance of a discerning audience, reading between the lines of a theatre scroll. He’s about to explain how under a certain set of Fire Sage rules, by all rights, Katara should _technically_ be Fire Lord by now, when she cuts him off –

“How could you even _say_ that? What are you even _talking_ about?”

It’s like the room suddenly lost all of its air.

“Um, Katara?” Sokka says. “What?”

Katara doesn’t look at him. She’s looking at Zuko. She’s looking at Zuko with a determined ferocity as her hands clench up and the water in a delicately painted vase of wilting narcissus she has picked unevenly begins to frost over. 

“Katara?” Zuko asks, gentle.

She takes a step forward. It is as if everyone else in the room has melted away. 

“I can’t _believe_ you. I can’t believe you’d _suffer_ that much, suffer _for your people_ – just to joke about throwing it away, like it’s _nothing_. Do you really think you’re that _replaceable?_ Do you think people simply _don’t care_ _–”_

The water freezes. It expands, and the vase shatters. Flowers for Zuko, strewn on the floor at his feet, with patterned ceramics and crushed ice.

She stops – suddenly, as if the words cut her to say. She’d be walking all over those broken things to reach him.

She spins, and runs out of the room.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He can’t chase her. Quite literally, he can only walk with a limp. He’s under _strict_ instruction to only walk with _supervision,_ at least until he can get hold of a cane, and he would not risk Katara’s ire further by ignoring yet more of her medical advice. He sends Sokka to chase after her in his stead. 

This is, in retrospect, a very foolish decision. Katara is now apparently furious at them _both._

Sokka offers some kind of shrug, stumbled explanation, about _you know how_ Katara gets, which Zuko does and doesn’t, really, he might have set off with her on an impulsive quest for justice and/or revenge but that doesn’t mean he _knows_ her like someone who was brought up with her.

“Sisters, eh?” Sokka says, and claps him on the back. Like that’s supposed to mean anything.

It doesn’t matter, either way. She is refusing to speak to either of them. Whenever she sees Zuko during their mandatory healing sessions, she dumps flowers on his table, gives him a very hard _look,_ and then does not say a word.

Zuko mostly deals with this by sulking in silence.

 _(I suppose it’s kind of her, to help when she has no obligation to do so,_ says a voice that sounds suspiciously like Uncle, a voice that tickles like guilt)

He’s not avoiding her. He’s _not_ avoiding her.

It’s… just that the days are a flurry again, a whirlwind stuffed full of papers to be signed, appointments he’s yet to make, and decisions he’s yet to take and yet again he has a revolving door of officials and dignitaries and the _actually_ important people this time, everything is waiting to happen, and there’s a breeze hurrying him along and he wishes he could run to keep apace with it.

The coronation is _in two weeks._

He hadn’t thought much about what it would look like until now. If anything, he believed it’d be something wrapped up in ritual, constrained by its trappings. He did not imagine half the palace being dismantled, packed in boxes, full of rushed footsteps, a work in progress. An organisational nightmare.

The wind picks up again.

He has begun to take his morning meetings in the gardens. It was Suki’s suggestion. After – pretty bluntly, actually – telling him that he looked really miserable, she told him that fresh air would probably do him some good _._ So he sets up a desk in the ruby pavilion, by the lake where blue dragon-koi like to swim amongst the lotus flowers. From there he can hear the makeshift air nomad chimes for meditation, as he looks over the first draft of a peace treaty. A gust of wind almost blows half his official correspondence up into the air – after so long pinning down every officer that is still ‘loyal’ to a map, he should be more irritated, but he’s too _busy_ to really do anything but catch what he can and bury the feeling further, and invest in a good paperweight.

Katara brings him lotus flowers in the evening. There’s still mud on their ends.

Around him, the palace fills up with chatter. The servants gossip openly as they scrub the dust away from where every other tapestry and mosaic and ceramic of Sozin’s Achievements once displayed proudly, now pulled down, packed away, put in a box. 

He has to decide what to do with the box. It weighs on him, what to do with the box.

The wind picks up again.

It still feels claustrophobic. Even with his friends – his friends – here and _present,_ laughing and shouting and taking up space, breathing easy in this palace short of air, whose dark, empty corridors stretch out from childhood nightmares into the flesh. Even when watching Suki’s daily practice sessions, or Toph’s impromptu attempts at “landscape gardening” during his daily briefings, Sokka’s midnight tea-making sessions where the conversation meanders about anything _except_ their shared inability to stick to a normal sleep schedule, or the warmth of sunrise meditation on the temple steps with Aang. The desperation feels more optimistic this time, instead of a manic struggle to keep everything from falling into pieces, but he's still gasping for air. Even with the sudden winds. It’s claustrophobic. He’s gasping for air.

Katara brings him flowers. All kinds of flowers, and he can hear his mother speak their names. All kinds of meanings.

He reaches for his cane.

He _has_ to get out.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


He stumbles around the palace, until he finds her, under a slim crescent of moonlight, at the same turtleduck pond that his mother used to sit by. There is no longer a little boy curled up under her long silk sleeves, her wings, he liked to pretend, as she read to him while he fed the ducklings.

It is quiet here. Little noise. There hasn’t been much since she left. The wind passing over feels like an intrusion. This place is still, except for the girl pulling water from its edge.

He sits down by the pond edge, near, but not next to Katara. Her expression changes to something hard, noticing him, but she continues to pull water from the pond and loop it in her hands. It’s a seamless, fluid motion, and not for the first time, he wishes he could do anything half as free-flowing with fire.

“You’ll wake up the ducklings,” he says, quietly.

She looks at him, blinking in surprise.

“They live here. It’s their pond.”

She stops. The water falls into the pond.

She crosses her arms over her knees, with a very big scowl on her face.

He waits.

Eventually, she looks up at him.

“This is _the_ pond, isn’t it?” she says. “The one your mother liked.”

“Yeah. It’s the one.”

He takes a moment to look out towards it, to how the moonlight likes to reflect and ripple on the surface, and for a moment, Zuko feels calm.

“We can feed the ducks in the morning if you like,” he says. “They’re very cute. Promise.”

Something softens, for just a moment. It’s an almost-smile, curling up in the corner of her mouth. “Okay. But I’m _still_ very mad at you, though.”

“I know.” He pauses. 

She looks down. The wind whistles, and it still feels like an intrusion. Zuko takes a long, deep breath. _One, two, three, four..._

“Katara, I'm sorry. I really am. What I did was stupid–”

“ _Extremely_ stupid.”

“Extremely stupid,” Zuko corrects. “And very reckless. I know I shouldn't try and strain myself when I'm sick. It's not fair on you, after all the time and effort you've put in to look after me. You even bring me flowers every day. I shouldn’t take that for granted.”

Katara frowns.

“Those flowers aren’t just for you, Zuko.”

“Oh.” 

She tightens her grip on her knees. 

“They’re to stop me trashing your room each time I visit.” She sighs. “I… I really, _really_ hate it here. I miss home. I miss my family.” She’s trying not to shake. “And _everything_ about this palace feels _wrong._ The corridors are _too empty_ even when there’s too many people. Every portrait feels like it’s _glaring at me._ There’s a thousand different rules I don’t seem to understand, meanings into every little glance or gesture that I can’t wrap my head around, and it’s hot and the air is _too watery_ and I feel like I’m _tripping over_ something wrong with every other word I say and it’s like _I’m suffocating, here, Zuko. I can't stand it._ ”

The water on the surface of the pond surges upwards, with a start.

“It’s not fair,” she says, her voice breaking, her nails digging into her knees. “You have all these lovely flowers. _Why_ do you have such lovely flowers?”

Zuko turns to look at her. He shuffles closer. His hand reaches out. 

She doesn’t take it. Not at first.

“Katara?”

She shakes her head. All of her is shaking.

“And… And _you_ just make it worse. You’re my _friend_ Zuko. And you’re _hurt_. You don’t _get it._ I’d look after you _anyway_.” Her shoulders stiffen up. “Besides. It's not – ugh, I’m being selfish. This isn't _about_ me. It’s about you.”

“It is?” he says quietly.

“It’s… Zuko, I don't understand. Why did you – what inspired you, what _possessed you,_ Zuko, to go and visit your sister that night? Why would you do that to yourself?”

He frowns, a little. “So you heard about that, then.”

“Why? Why Zuko? I just don’t _get it._ After everything she’s done…”

“She’s my sister, Katara.”

“She tried to _kill you! She tried to kill Aang! She tried to kill all of us!”_

“She's still my sister. I can't abandon her.”

Katara's hands curl up into fists and her face twists up and –

There’s tears in her eyes.

"You – you and Sokka, you're both the same, you both have _sea slugs_ for brains, the both of you! You act like you're supposed to just _take it_ , all the world throws at you, take a thousand blows before you'd even think of helping yourselves. She – she tried to _kill_ you Zuko, I was scared. I was _so_ scared. I… How could you... it's like you don't put any value on your life at all. Like you think you're less than worthless. I hate it! _I hate it!_ ”

“I need to be there for her. She's got no one else, Katara –”

“No, you need to be there for _you_. Not after she's hurt you. Let anyone – literally anyone else – look after her, please. Beg your uncle to come look after her. Find an old aunt or cousin or just _literally anyone else.”_

Something is stuck in his throat. And his eyes. And his nose.

“Katara,” he says. “I… don’t know if I can promise that.”

He looks at her. Really looks. There’s tears streaming down her face.

Zuko pulls her, then, into a deep hug, and holds her close.

She clings on tightly, and bawls.

“S-stupid Zuko. _Stupid_. Why is it so hard for you to imagine people care about you? You're so, _so_ infuriating.”

“People do tell me that.”

“ _Promise me,_ ” she says, holding him tight, “At least, wait until your _current_ injury is all healed up before you try and confront her again _._ Can you do at least _that?”_

“Ugh. That’ll be _ages._ ”

Katara snorts, and it’s cut up, in between sobs.

“Y-yes, but… healing takes time. Takes time and rest. Even with a master waterbender at your side. Be patient. Just this once.”

“I’m not very good at being patient. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

Katara elbows him in the stomach. “Stop trying to make me _laugh_ , you big idiot. I’m _still_ mad at you.” She sniffs, loudly. “You better show me those turtleducklings tomorrow, and they better be cute.”

“I missed you too, Katara,” he says.

“I missed you too, idiot.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The day after his coronation, Zuko decides he will not visit his father.

Instead, before he places that heavy crown in his hair, he accompanies Katara to the gardens that morning, to the hot-houses where they sit in bloom all year long, while she picks out some flowers. They’re doing what she wants to do, on her last day here. He tells her all the names and their historic meanings, his mother’s voice lilting in his head gently as she pulls them from the earth. She doesn’t know, or care much for that, but listens anyway, and talks freely about what colours and shapes she likes, as she sorts them into two piles: ones which will be braided into his hair, and one which won’t.

“Oh – uh, those are peach blossoms. Maybe not?”

“Why not?” she says. She holds it up against his hair, considering the soft pink blush of the petals. “I think they look really nice, personally.”

“Um. Well. Poetically, they symbolise a budding, blossoming romance–”

Katara freezes.

“–And, well, while I _do_ like you Katara, and yes, you’re objectively an incredible friend, and anyone would be lucky to have you–”

“... wait, you’re not _rejecting_ me, are you, Zuko?”

“... yes? Sorry?”

“Because _I’m_ definitely rejecting you first.” She makes a disgusted face. “I don’t date imperialist monarchs. Especially not Fire Lords. _Gross._ ”

Zuko can’t help but laugh.

“ _She_ wouldn’t like it either.”

“Definitely not. Ew.”

They throw the peach blossoms on the ground. 

The rest they sort into two. Flowers for Zuko, and Flowers for Azula.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The day is organised into careful sections and his stomach is churning throughout them as he works his way through briefings, diplomatic discussions, the exact turn of phrase for Yu Dao in the seventh draft of an Earth Kingdom treaty (it’s not a colony, he reminds himself, it’s not _ours_ ), his first formal peace council meeting (which, all things considered, could have been _more_ of a disaster given that he has replaced almost every member of the war council), reports on how his father is festering in prison, tea with his uncle – and he can’t read the hard lines of his face, when Zuko tells him what he plans to do that evening – and finally, dinner with the Avatar, and his friends. It’s as the sun is dimming, that he catches Katara’s eye.

“I’ll wait for you outside.”

He brings flowers. Red and gold and purple. No long, elegant orchids (as those are Mother’s favourites) but plenty of bright peonies and lucky roses and narcissus, with its long trumpets, for rebirth, renewal, spring.

He knocks on his sister’s door. 

As he enters, he pulls the heavy crown from his hair, and lets his hair hang loose.

* * *

  
  
  


It’s dark. The shutters are drawn. 

“Azula,” he says, and it’s a whisper, as he lets a little candle flame dance in his hand. “I’ve brought you flowers.”

She says nothing. She’s curled up beneath her sheets, refusing to move.

“I’ll just put them on the dresser, then,” he says, placing them down.

He stands, awkwardly, for a moment. There’s nowhere for him to sit. 

She still hasn’t moved.

“Azula… I… I want to… I… ugh.” 

He pauses. He feels his shoulder deflate.

“I had this planned thing to say, but I don’t think it sounds very good. I guess...”

He moves, and he sits on the corner of her bed. Back turned to her.

“Things have been bad between us. For a long time. And I’m tired of that. I’m _really_ tired of that.”

He sighs.

“I don’t know if things can be normal. But, at least, a little less messed up would be nice, I think.”

His hands are doing the fumbling thing. He’s sat through a whole day of meetings, with the Fire Lord’s crown, and his hands didn’t _once_ do the fumbling thing then.

“You’re my sister. And I… I want to help, you know. I know things aren’t good, but you’re _not_ a failure, or anything like that. You just need help. And… we weren’t made to carry the world by ourselves, you know. Not even us.”

He smiles, and then winces, a little at that. For all that’s said about the Fire Lord being the True Hand of Agni, he sure did have a lot of helpers.

“I think we need… time. Time to heal, first. I know _I_ need that. And I want to find people who can really help you, while you get some of that. Maybe Uncle… although,” and he chuckles, just a little bit, at that, “I think you might not like that much. I’m looking for someone we can both trust. You deserve that. And like I said, you’re my sister. You’re the only sister I’ve got.”

There’s a pause. He feels his voice shrink. He feels everything want to brim over and fall apart everywhere.

He tries to hold it together. Just a moment more.

“I love you, Azula,” he says, as his voice almost breaks. “Really. I do.”

Something shifts.

He turns around.

Azula is sitting up, in an ill-fitting robe and uneven, tangled hair. It hasn’t been touched since the Agni Kai.

She’s glaring at him.

She looks weary. So weary.

“Zuko,” she says. “Get out of my room.”

Zuko blinks.

“Azula? I just want to talk.”

“ _Get out.”_

There's no shouting, no screaming, no _blue blue blue,_ no grand spectacle, not here, in this dark bedroom that feels as if it has shrunk. Only a very tired fourteen year old girl.

He leaves without a word. He doesn’t need to be told more than twice.

* * *

He slides the door shut behind him quietly.

“Zuko?”

They go to the turtleduck pond. He sits next to her, puts his head on her shoulder, and holds her hand tight.

Later, she’ll braid a crown of flowers into his hair as the stars twinkle in the sky. He’ll wear them during a gentle evening spar with Suki (she’s going _very_ easy on him), and when he slips out with Sokka for the last of their midnight tea sessions (who won't even comment – he knows better). It’ll still be rumpled in his hair when he has his morning meditation with Aang, who tells him it’s beautiful. He’ll promise to bring a garden’s worth of them the next time he visits the South Pole.

But for now, he holds onto Katara’s hand, and cries out his eyes.

Some wounds take time to heal.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> so. oof.
> 
> I really wanted to be true to Zuko & Azula's dynamic and how much of a *mess* they are in this moment in time. I don't think either of them are ready to heal - Zuko's certainly not in the position to be her caretaker, and that's really what this fic is all about.
> 
> As I was writing this definitely became a *lot* more about Zuko & Katara's friendship. I really see them as BFFs here, and wanted to show them supporting each other even as they're struggling. Hopefully, I didn't just write Katara as a comforter here - while this is Zuko-centric, I really wanted to ensure she had space to be angry, to struggle, as well (hence all the flowers). Hence why it basically tripled in length from the three scenes it was supposed to be (the Agni Kai, the stumbling around at night with the crown scene, and the final conversation with Azula).
> 
> My excuse for all the out of season flowers is hot houses. Apparently the first description of a heated greenhouse is from Korea. I bet the Fire Nation has them, and I bet there's a fire-bending technique involved too :^).
> 
> Anyway! Find me on tumblr [@zuzuslastbraincell](https://zuzuslastbraincell.tumblr.com/)(I take myself seriously there)


End file.
